英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

morgue: morgue: [19] The original Morgue was a Parisian mortuary where unidentified corpses were displayed for visitors to try and put names to faces (a process described in gruesome detail by Émile Zola in Thérèse Raquin 1867). Its name is presumed to be a reapplication of an earlier French morgue ‘room in a prison where new prisoners were examined’, which may ultimately be the same word as morgue ‘haughty superiority’ (used in English from the 16th to the 19th centuries). Morgue was first adopted as a generic English term for ‘mortuary’ in the USA in the 1880s.
usher: usher: [14] An usher is etymologically a ‘doorkeeper’. The word comes via Anglo-Norman usser from medieval Latin ūstārius, an alteration of classical Latin ōstārius ‘door-keeper’. This was derived from ōstium ‘door’, which in turn was based on ōs ‘mouth’ (source of English oral). The usher’s job-description gradually broadened out from standing at the door to accompanying visitors inside and showing them to their places, which led in the 16th century to the emergence of the verb usher.
=> oral
at-home (n.): "reception of visitors," 1745, from phrase at home.
cheese (n.2): "the proper thing," from Urdu chiz "a thing," from Persian chiz, from Old Persian *ciš-ciy "something," from PIE pronominal stem *kwo- (see who). Picked up by British in India by 1818 and used in the sense of "a big thing" (especially in the phrase the real chiz).

This perhaps is behind the expression big cheese "important person" (1914), but that is American English in origin and likely rather belongs to cheese (n.1). To cut a big cheese as a figurative expression for "look important" is recorded from 1915, and overlarge wheels of cheese, especially from Wisconsin, were commonly displayed 19c. as publicity stunts by retailers, etc.
The cheese will be on exhibition at the National Dairy Show at Chicago next week. President Taft will visit the show the morning of Monday, October thirtieth, and after his address he will be invited to cut the big cheese, which will then be distributed in small lots to visitors at the show. ["The Country Gentleman," Oct. 28, 1911]
nomenclature (n.): c. 1600, "a name," from Middle French nomenclature (16c.), from Latin nomenclatura "calling of names," from nomenclator "namer," from nomen "name" (see name (n.)) + calator "caller, crier," from calare "call out" (see claim (v.)).

Nomenclator in Rome was the title of a steward whose job was to announce visitors, and also of a prompter who helped a stumping politician recall names and pet causes of his constituents. Meaning "list or catalogue of names" first attested 1630s; that of "system of naming" is from 1660s; sense of "terminology of a science" is from 1789.
open (adj.): Old English open "not closed down, raised up" (of gates, eyelids, etc.), also "exposed, evident, well-known, public," often in a bad sense, "notorious, shameless;" from Proto-Germanic *upana, literally "put or set up" (cognates: Old Norse opinn, Swedish öppen, Danish aaben, Old Saxon opan, Old Frisian epen, Old High German offan, German offen "open"), from PIE *upo "up from under, over" (cognates: Latin sub, Greek hypo; see sub-). Related to up, and throughout Germanic the word has the appearance of a past participle of *up (v.), but no such verb has been found. The source of words for "open" in many Indo-European languages seems to be an opposite of the word for "closed, shut" (such as Gothic uslukan).

Of physical spaces, "unobstructed, unencumbered," c. 1200; of rooms with unclosed entrances, c. 1300; of wounds, late 14c. Transferred sense of "frank, candid" is attested from early 14c. Of shops, etc., "available for business," it dates from 1824. Open door in reference to international trading policies is attested from 1856. Open season is first recorded 1896, of game; and figuratively 1914 of persons. Open book in the figurative sense of "person easy to understand" is from 1853. Open house "hospitality for all visitors" is first recorded 1824. Open-and-shut "simple, straightforward" first recorded 1841 in New Orleans. Open marriage, one in which the partners sleep with whomever they please, is from 1972. Open road (1817, American English) originally meant a public one; romanticized sense of "traveling as an expression of personal freedom" first recorded 1856, in Whitman.
rush (n.1): "plant growing in marshy ground," Old English resc, earlier risc, from Proto-Germanic *rusk- (cognates: Middle Low German rusch, Middle High German rusch, German Rausch, West Frisian risk, Dutch rusch), from PIE *rezg- "to plait, weave, wind" (cognates: Latin restis "cord, rope").

Old French rusche probably is from a Germanic source. Used for making torches and finger rings, also strewn on floors when visitors arrived; it was attested a type of "something of no value" from c. 1300. See OED for spelling variations.
salvo (n.): 1719, alteration of salva (1590s) "simultaneous discharge of guns," from Italian salva "salute, volley" (French salve, 16c., is from Italian), from Latin salve "hail!," literally "be in good health!," the usual Roman greeting, regarded as imperative of salvere "to be in good health," but properly vocative of salvus "healthy" (see safe (adj.)). The notion is of important visitors greeted with a volley of gunfire into the air; applied afterward to any concentrated fire from guns.
violon d'Ingres (n.): "an occasional pastime, an activity other than that for which one is well-known, or at which one excells," 1963, from French, literally "Ingres' violin," from the story that the great painter prefered to play his violin (badly) for visitors instead of showing them his pictures.
Une légende, assez suspecte, prétend que le peintre Ingres état plus fier de son jeu sur le violon, jeu qui était fort ordinaire, que de sa peinture, qui l'avait rendu illustre. [Larousse du XXe Siecle, 1931]
gippy tummy: "Diarrhoea affecting visitors to hot countries", 1940s: gippy, abbreviation of Egyptian.